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A movie about the rapture starring Nicolas Cage should be wackier than “Left Behind.” It should have more smoldering panic bursting into full-blown freak-outs. It should have more passion, more intensity. It should have more bees.

Yes, Cage’s howl-inducing remake of ‘The Wicker Man” from 2006 actually feels like a legitimately good time compared to this dull groaner about the end times. It’s a remake too: a version of “Left Behind” starring Kirk Cameron quickly came and went from theaters in 2001, followed by a couple of straight-to-DVD sequels. All are based on the apocalyptic novels by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye.

Christian readers and audiences are the base here, but it’s hard to imagine that this incarnation of the story will persuade anyone else to find the Lord unless they’re sitting in the theater praying for the dialogue or special effects to improve. This is essentially an “ Airport ” movie with an Evangelical spin, but it lacks the self-awareness to turn such a wild concept into a guilty pleasure.

Director Vic Armstrong , a longtime stuntman making only his second feature (and his first in a couple of decades), had a larger budget than the original's, and a more established star in the lead. None of that shows up on screen. The "big" set pieces look small and chintzy, the lighting is hard and flat, and the pacing is a monotonous back-and-forth between an airplane in the skies across the Atlantic and the chaos on the ground below.

But the more serious disappointment comes from Cage’s performance. As the awesomely named Rayford Steele, a philandering airline pilot who sees the light as the end is nigh, Cage needed to bring the wild-eyed, full-bore crazy. This has been his bread and butter of late, and it’s been a thoroughly enjoyable career shift. Instead, he’s oddly inert as the movie's voice of reason. Looking distractingly rubbery with a helmet of fake, dark hair, he seems to have been Photoshopped into the film. His presence is so strangely awkward and unconvincing.

Then again, the script from Paul Lalonde (who also produced the original “Left Behind” movies) and John Patus doesn’t exactly give him or the rest of the cast much to work with. It’s full of flat character types and blandly expository dialogue.  At the film’s start, Rayford’s daughter, Chloe (the perky Cassi Thomson), has come home from college for the weekend for her dad’s birthday. But Rayford got a last-minute assignment to fly from New York to London overnight, which will keep him away all that time. At least that’s what he told his wife Irene ( Lea Thompson ), who’s no fun anymore now that she’s found Jesus and is urging everyone around her to do the same. (The camera lingers as Irene tosses her gardening gloves on top of her ever-present Bible.) His real plan is to seduce a hot, blonde flight attendant ( Nicky Whelan ) over the weekend, beginning with prime tickets to see U2.

This is actually a vaguely intriguing premise: What happens to a marriage when one spouse undergoes a religious conversion and the other does not? It seems similar to what happens when one spouse gets sober and the other keeps drinking. What sort of wedge does this create? How does the family survive? But these aren’t the questions “Left Behind” cares to ponder. Armageddon is on the horizon.

Anyway, Chloe and her dad have a brief, stilted conversation in the airport waiting area between her arrival and his departure. Being the skeptic that she is, she also has a confrontation about religion with a woman who’s just bought a book about God at the bookstore. Chloe also finds time for a long chat with hunky, hotshot TV news correspondent Buck Williams, who happens to be a passenger on Rayford’s flight to London. ( Chad Michael Murray takes over the role Cameron played in the original. I’d say that’s an improvement.) There's a lot of sitting around and talking in “Left Behind.”

But then! Out of nowhere, God starts calling the pure of heart to heaven: children, mostly, but also people who have the words BIBLE STUDY written in their calendars in big capital letters. At first, no one realizes this is God’s doing. People just disappear, leaving their clothes and belongings in a pile where they once stood, including Chloe’s little brother and (of course) her mom.

Pandemonium ensues as millions go missing worldwide–or at least, implied pandemonium. This includes a school bus driving off an overpass and a small plane crashing into a shopping mall parking lot. There is zero finesse to these supposedly dramatic images. Mostly, Armstrong gives us a lot of people running around, flailing their hands in the air.

Meanwhile, up in the sky, folks start disappearing, too–including a flight attendant and Rayford’s second-in-command. (Guess this means God really is his co-pilot.) The barely sketched-out passengers in first class start panicking and bickering, including a Texas businessman, an Asian conspiracy theorist and a drugged-up heiress. Former “American Idol” winner Jordin Sparks fares poorly as a paranoid, unstable mom who somehow smuggled a handgun on the plane. Worst of all is the consistent yammering between a kindly Muslim and a surly little person. The movie cuts to them repeatedly for comic relief, but it’s painfully unfunny every time.

“Left Behind” finally edges toward an enjoyable level of insanity as it reaches its conclusion. I wouldn’t dream of giving away the details–mysterious ways, and all–but I will say that it involves the petite Chloe driving a steamroller in the dead of night on a deserted stretch of highway that’s under construction.

Still, for a movie that spells everything out, it’s unclear why God chose this particular moment to inflict his wrath upon the masses. Was it because Rayford tried to forsake his wedding vows with a flirty flight attendant at a U2 show? Still, if you’re a true believer, it’s a beautiful day.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Left Behind (2014)

Rated PG-13

105 minutes

Nicolas Cage as Rayford Steele

Lea Thompson as Irene Steele

Chad Michael Murray as Buck Williams

Nicky Whelan as Hattie Durham

Jordin Sparks as Shasta Carvell

Martin Klebba as Melvin Weir

Cassi Thompson as Chloe Steele

• Vic Armstrong
• Paul Lalonde

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A man, a plane, a rapture: 'left behind'.

Mark Jenkins

Nicolas Cage stars as airline pilot Ray Steele in Left Behind . Courtesy of Stoney Lake Entertainment hide caption

Nicolas Cage stars as airline pilot Ray Steele in Left Behind .

The world is ending, billions will die, and hell is, literally, coming to Long Island. But the rebooted Left Behind doesn't want to alarm you.

Fourteen years ago, as a new millennium's arrival failed to extinguish our doggedly persistent universe, the first Left Behind movie introduced a slithery Antichrist — a U.N. official, of course — and the prospect of global war centered on Jerusalem. Just last month, The Remaining treated the fundamentalist-Christian notion of "the rapture" as a horror movie, littered with the corpses of born-againers whose souls had been called to heaven.

The second attempt to create a successful movie franchise from the 16 best-selling Left Behind novels takes a gentler approach. The departed abandon only their clothing, not their carcasses. And no demons are glimpsed in a tale that focuses tightly on the family of airline pilot Ray Steele (Nicolas Cage). As Ray tries to land a disabled jetliner whose co-pilot is now chilling with the man upstairs, his challenges derive less from the Bible (1 Thessalonians 4:17, in particular) than from such moldy disaster flicks as 1969's Airport .

For those who missed this particular end of the world the last time it didn't happen, Left Behind is based on a series of sectarian thrillers by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. Adapting the books to the screen began in 2000, but the movies didn't click even as straight-to-church-auditorium fare, and stopped at three. The producers of the latest round of adaptations have also promised three, not a full 13.

The revamped but still clunky saga begins as Ray prepares to fly from JFK to London by removing his wedding ring. He's estranged from his wife (Lea Thompson) since she became a rapture-ready Christian, and is hoping to spend some time with a sexy flight attendant once they land. This carnal design has so warped his judgment that he has decided to skip a family reunion with daughter Chloe (Cassie Thomson), who has returned from college just to see him.

Chloe visits her dad briefly at the airport, and while there meets famed daredevil journalist Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray), who will also be on that flight to London. Then she takes her little brother to the mall, where break dancers bust some moves that are as fluid as the dialogue is stiff. This protracted setup moves about as briskly as the first three hours of Boyhood .

Finally, the righteous vanish and the rest are left to ponder their disappearance. Chloe searches for her sibling and mom, both of whom are no longer in this world; her dad flies the damaged plane while piecing together the religious significance of what just happened.

In first class, Williams deals with unruly fellow travelers selected for their comic-relief value. Among the passengers is a pistol-packing sports-star spouse played by American Idol champ Jordin Sparks, who sings the end-credits ditty, "I Wish We'd All Been Ready." Viewers will wish that director Vic Armstrong and scripters Paul Lalonde and John Patus had been ready, too.

The movie climaxes with Ray's attempt to land the plane, an utterly nontheological struggle. This section of the movie is adequately staged, if not exactly surprising. Its emphasis on real-world rather than supernatural threats is shrewd, but sooner or later the new Left Behind series will have to focus on its source's real agenda. At that point, the potential audience will evaporate faster than Chloe's kid brother.

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• DVD & Streaming

Left Behind: The Movie

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In Theaters

• Kirk Cameron as Buck Williams; Brad Johnson as Rayford Steele; Chelsea Noble as Hattie Durham; Clarence Gilyard Jr. as Bruce Barnes; Gordon Currie as Nicolae Carpathia; Janaya Stephens as Chloe Steele; Christie MacFadyen as Irene Steele; Jay Manchester as Rayford (Raymie) Steele Jr.

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• Victor Sarin

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• Cloud Ten Pictures

Movie Review

It’s fitting that the end of the world should begin with a whimper, not a bang. Ray is still fighting with his wife, escaping from a stressed-out home life to the sanctuary of his 747 cockpit. Buck is winging his way around the world looking for that ever-elusive Pulitzer-winning news story, palling around with flight attendants and nutcase informants. Hattie’s tired of waiting around for Ray to leave his wife so she can have him to herself. Chloe’s taking exams. Then, suddenly, chaos as the whimper implodes. Millions of people disappear, instantly, making a quantum leap into eternity. But their clothes aren’t the only things left behind. Countless people living without Christ are left to put together the puzzle pieces of real life events they can’t hope to fully comprehend.

Next stop: the Antichrist.

Left Behind: The Movie dramatizes the biblically prophesied rapture of believers and the beginning of the tribulation which follows (mid-trib and post-trib theologians better make their own movie). The script, based on the best-selling Left Behind novels by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, attempts to capture both the intimate moments of human drama and the broad strokes of political intrigue. It works—part of the time.

My own feelings about the film are as mixed as its reviews. On the secular side, many critics have panned production values and story lines. Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide ’s Movie Guide was being nice when he wrote, “This picture’s b-movie values probably play better on video than in theaters.” The Associated Press’ Anthony Breznican just came out and said what he really felt, declaring Left Behind “a weak proselytizing device masquerading as a movie.” On the Christian side, critics are raving. “Viewers from pre-teens up will find Left Behind intriguing and thought provoking,” writes John Evans for Preview Family Movie and TV Review . “ Left Behind is the best movie made so far in the apocalyptic genre and has been crafted with a very careful, deft touch,” declares Ted Baehr’s Movieguide . In the end, there’s a little bit of truth in all of it. Left Behind does fall closer to the “b” line than the “a.” It is also thought provoking and intriguing. Everything depends on your standard for comparison. Judged against the “made-for-cable” crowd, it’s one of the best flicks out there. Up against Steven Spielberg, it’s underwhelming.

positive elements/spiritual content: Without commenting on the ins and outs of “last days” prophesy, it’s fair to say that Left Behind does a great job of confronting moviegoers with the truth of God’s Word. His salvation plan for mankind. The way the world winds down. Several key characters ask Christ to take over their hearts, and the sinner’s prayer is verbalized. Ray comes to realize that his family is the most valuable thing he has, and that realization, coupled with God’s work in his heart, changes his life. A left-behind preacher realizes that what he taught his congregation didn’t line up with how he lived. “What a fraud I am,” he moans, “and everybody bought it.” Directing his attention to the Lord, he cries, “I knew your message. I knew your words. . . . Knowing and believing are two different things.” Buck says, “Our only hope is to join together and trust God. I don’t have all the answers, but for now, faith is enough.” Scripture passages—from Daniel, to Ezekiel, to 1 Thessalonians—are used to explain end-times events.

sexual content: None. It could be assumed that Ray and Hattie had engaged in an extramarital affair, but no details are given. It’s just as plausible that the two shared an unconsummated flirtation, rather than a sexual relationship. Either way, Ray is convicted of his behavior and seeks forgiveness.

violent content: War planes bomb Israel. The scene shows people scurrying for cover and massive explosions tearing through a city. A car bomb kills a CIA agent. An informant is found lying dead in his house. And in an unsettling moment near the end, the Antichrist callously executes two men with pointblank gunfire. In addition, a sniper’s bullet narrowly misses Buck’s head. A large freeway pileup results in burning cars and bleeding victims.

crude or profane language: “Oh God” and “Oh my God” are each used once.

drug and alcohol content: Buck’s colleagues at his news agency smoke (one woman is shown smoking several times). An informant holds a lit cigarette in his hand, but never takes a puff. A bar scene features a very drunk woman. It seems that Buck also orders a beer.

conclusion: Anyone who has seen the Apocalypse or A Thief in the Night trilogies will find Left Behind to be familiar territory (thankfully, 2000 production values far exceed those available in 1972). And just like the books that inspired it, this movie’s ending fairly screams “sequel.” That’s all fine and good—many of Hollywood’s greatest stories have been continued —but prepare yourself for a few unanswered questions as the credits roll.

That said, Left Behind makes great strides in the Christian moviemaking world. It boasts a positive, yet challenging core message. It features zero sex scenes. No vulgarity. And a reserved—if sometimes intense—approach to violent events. Its harrowing themes may frighten young children (just like A Thief in the Night scared the dickens out of me when I was a kid), but teens and adults should find a lot to like about Left Behind .

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Summary In the blink of an eye, the biblical Rapture strikes the world. Millions of people disappear without a trace. All that remains are their clothes and belongings, and in an instant, terror and chaos spread around the world. Ray Steele (Nicolas Cage), an airline pilot, struggles to calm, and ultimately to save the lives of the passengers th ... Read More

Directed By : Vic Armstrong

Written By : Paul Lalonde, John Patus, Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins

Left Behind

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Nicolas Cage

Rayford steele, lea thompson, irene steele, cassi thomson, chloe steele, chad michael murray, buck williams, nicky whelan, hattie durham, jordin sparks, shasta carvell, gary grubbs, dennis beese, quinton aaron, martin klebba, melvin weir, georgina armstrong, venice baxter, kamryn johnson, lauren swinney, major dodson, raymie steele, lance e. nichols, pastor bruce barnes, william ragsdale, chris smith, stephanie honoré, airport gate attendant, judd lormand, critic reviews.

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• Movie Review

'Left Behind': when God becomes a Hollywood monster

A terrible book about the apocalypse gets even bleaker.

• By Adi Robertson
• on October 9, 2014 10:00 am
• @thedextriarchy

I’ll admit, I didn’t expect to walk out of a terrible Nicolas Cage movie thinking about theodicy.

From the moment it was announced, I developed a morbid curiosity about the latest attempt at a film adaptation of Left Behind, the 1995 novel that kicked off a wildly popular series about the Christian Rapture. No matter how terrible they were, for a certain wave of evangelical, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ novels were a cultural touchstone. They were part of a rich tradition of religiously charged science fiction, a ripped-from-the-headlines chronicle of the end of days “factually” based on close analysis (but creative interpretation) of the Bible. And the movie, I thought, could be campy enough to transcend its source material. So in a nearly empty Manhattan multiplex theater, I saw Left Behind on opening night.

As it turns out, Left Behind has very little to do with the novel it’s based on. In many ways, that’s a very good thing. The first book in LaHaye’s series follows two protagonists: "revered" airline pilot Rayford Steele and superstar journalist Cameron "Buck" Williams. Unexplained disappearances rock the world, and a charismatic Antichrist rises to power, while Rayford, his daughter Chloe, and Buck prepare to survive the end times as part of the guerrilla "Tribulation Force." This all sounds tremendously exciting, until you realize that both men are arrogant and vindictive bores, the Rapture is forgotten within a few chapters, and the Antichrist is a minor Romanian politician jockeying for leadership of the UN.

With its unpleasant characters, glacial pace, and bizarre preoccupation with phone calls and travel plans, Left Behind may be one of the dullest books (and most cynical money grabs, since its story would be stretched over 15 more volumes and a young adult series) to ever hit the bestseller lists. A 2000 film adaptation, starring Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains , didn’t redeem it.

I’m reasonably confident guessing the original script for this version of Left Behind was not written for Tim LaHaye’s megafranchise at all. The characters and basic setup of the book are channeled into a disaster movie about Rayford (played by Nicolas Cage) struggling to land his plane amid the chaos of millions of people inexplicably disappearing. It’s more Langoliers than Leftovers : runways have gone dark, fuel is running low, and the remaining passengers are growing more paranoid by the minute. There’s no UN, no Antichrist, and in fact the whole plot of the movie covers 25 pages in the book — although, granted, they’re probably the most exciting 25 pages.

The whole plot of the movie covers 25 pages in the book

Left Behind is far less overtly religious than its source. But stripping out almost the entire plot reveals a grim story about religion, evil, and salvation. One of the long-running criticisms of the series, covered at length in writer Fred Clark’s brilliant deconstruction of the novels, is that it’s a fundamentalist revenge fantasy, where an angry God comes back to give sinners their just deserts. The book portrays most of those left behind as either willfully ignorant or outright evil, to the point of including a conversation about how doctors are upset that there are no fetuses left to abort. In turning an evangelical book into a semi-secular movie, the filmmakers somehow, perhaps accidentally, made the story even bleaker: God is capricious and terrifying, and he is going to hurt you.

In any medium, this is an inescapable fact of Left Behind , and of most Christian accounts of the apocalypse. Still, it’s usually balanced by descriptions of God’s love and a promise of protection and eternal life if sinners are born again. Someone may question why God allows evil in the world — as Chloe frequently does in the film — but they’re quickly set straight. Fans of Left Behind in particular often describe it as a hopeful book, promising that redemption is still possible after believers disappear. Whether or not it’s convincing, there’s at least an assertion that God is, in fact, good, and people who reject him are getting what they deserve.

There’s relatively little discussion of Christian beliefs in Left Behind , except for a few quotes about natural disasters and a sudden apocalypse. It plays the apocalypse straight, the way any science fiction movie might. And absent the lens of theology, God is simply a mysterious force that’s directly behind millions of disappearances and indirectly behind millions more outright deaths. Raptured Christians come off less as beacons of truth and more like members of a Cthulhoid death cult who were right in our midst all along. Left Behind half-heartedly hews to the idea that the people who remain will benefit from having their lives changed, but its characters aren’t written harshly enough to be selfish, ignorant stereotypes or well enough to be good-intentioned but flawed individuals. They’re just decent people, suffering. So without the Antichrist to play off, we see only the pure wrath of an unstoppable being that shows up, steals your loved ones, and demands that you be thankful for it. God doesn’t simply allow evil, he plays the part himself.

Unfortunately, Left Behind has bigger problems as simple entertainment. It starts with an aimless, meandering half-hour of pointless banter and earnest discussion between major characters, interspersed with almost completely extraneous vignettes of people who will never be seen again. Chloe and Buck are introduced with a forced meet-cute, and the passengers on Rayford’s plane are thinly drawn cliches created to fill supernatural-disaster-movie quotas. Nicolas Cage is the film’s biggest star, but he’s sadly reserved here, removing one of the biggest reasons to watch Left Behind in the first place.

There’s a solid half-hour of enjoyable action flick in Left Behind . The premise of a handful of people (well, the plane actually still seems reasonably full, but the movie quickly forgets about anyone in coach class) trapped in the sky and trying not to turn against each other is too much fun to ruin completely, even if much of the drama seems sudden, manufactured, and unconvincing. Very little of what Chloe does on the ground during that time makes narrative sense, but she moves fast enough that it doesn’t matter too much. But the movie is stretched too thin over too many genres: it’s a series of personal dramas stitched into an action movie with the occasional element of horror, backed by cheap special effects and sudden shifts between secular and Christian themes.

Left Behind bears some of the hallmarks of a made-for-TV religious movie, including a bland, schmaltzy, and often totally inappropriate score — it ends with a contemporary gospel-sounding cover of Larry Norman’s "I Wish We’d All Been Ready," from the 1970s Rapture-themed film A Thief in the Night. Technically, it hews reasonably close to the novel’s interpretation of the end times. I’m sure the studio is depending on Christian audiences to boost ticket sales, especially since Left Behind would be little more than a by-the-numbers action movie without the big-name connection. But it’s not really accurate to call it a "Christian film," and strangely, that tension might be the only interesting thing about it.

Hollywood is occasionally criticized for toning down religious themes to make films more broadly palatable, whether that means softening something supporting a given faith or something attacking it. By apparently attempting the former, though, Left Behind indicts the darkest parts of its source text, in a way that’s somehow more pointed than secular stories that use the Rapture as a backdrop. There’s no gotcha here, no mockery of religion, no revelation that God is not what He seems. Just a loose translation that shows how strange, how cruel, an idea can look when exposed to the harsh light of genre storytelling.

Film Review: ‘Left Behind’

Nicolas Cage has rarely looked more miserable than in this dreadful update of an already dreadfully adapted faith-based property.

By Andrew Barker

Andrew Barker

Senior Features Writer

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In what was surely a first in the annals of motion-picture marketing, an early ad for “ Left Behind ” featured a quote taken not from a film critic, but rather from Satan himself, who allegedly quipped, “Please do not bring unbelievers to this movie.” This presents a rare scenario in which Christian moviegoers ought to feel perfectly secure heeding the advice of the Devil, as this faith-based thriller is likely to inspire far more dorm-room drinking games than religious conversions. With a “Sharknado”-inspired visual style and a deeply weary lead performance from Nicolas Cage , “Left Behind” is cheap-looking, overwrought kitsch of the most unintentionally hilarious order, its eschatological bent representing its only real shot at box office redemption. The film hits theaters this weekend, but as for when believers can expect to see the tenets of their faith reflected with any sort of sophistication or intelligence in a mainstream genre film, we still know neither the day nor the hour.

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Appropriately for a film about the Second Coming, this is not the first attempt to adapt Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ massively popular 16-novel series of biblically inspired speculative fiction (call it “Bi-fi,” perhaps). Back in 2001, a bargain-basement version starring Kirk Cameron limped in and out of theaters, followed by two direct-to-video sequels. With a considerably larger budget and wider release strategy, this year’s edition can expect to do better business, though it will have to put in a very strong showing to avoid becoming the alpha and the omega of the rebooted franchise.

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Directed by Vic Armstrong, the screenplay by Paul Lalonde and John Patus substantially strips down the plot of the series’ first novel, zeroing in on three characters as they pass the first few confused hours following the Rapture, when all virtuous Christians are abruptly beamed up into heaven, leaving the unbelievers down below. Cage stars as a hotshot airline pilot named Rayford Steele (because “Jackbuick Ironmuscles” would have been too on-the-nose), who has just ditched his newly Christian wife (Lea Thompson) for the weekend to carry on with a flight attendant (Nicky Whelan), whom he plans to seduce at a U2 concert after a flight from New York to London. Ray’s daughter, Chloe (Cassi Thomson), is a dewy-eyed religious skeptic frustrated by her mother’s abrupt conversion and fed up with her absentee father. And investigative journalist Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray) meets cute with Chloe at the airport, managing to score her number before boarding Ray’s plane.

As soon as the plane is over the Atlantic, a slight jolt sees all the children onboard, as well as some scattered believers, vanish into thin air, leaving their clothes and possessions behind. Chloe, meanwhile, is at the mall when her younger brother goes missing, and must make her way on foot through the mildly unruly mob scene that has engulfed Long Island (unconvincingly played by Baton Rouge) to find her family. Sadly, the film never speculates on which U2 members, if any, were raptured from their London soundcheck.

From here, “Left Behind” toggles back and forth between the two scenes, typically using such phrases as “What is going on here?” and “I think I know what’s going on here!” as cues to cut. In the air, Ray struggles to deal with mechanical failures and the disappearance of his copilot, while passengers in the first-class cabin  — including the fearless Williams, a fashionable drug addict, a kindly Muslim, an antagonistic little person, a bolo-clad Texas businessman, an Area 51 conspiracy theorist, and Jordin Sparks   — bicker and kvetch. On the ground, Chloe does quite a lot of running and gasping, seemingly at a loss for how to fit herself into the story.

There’s nothing wrong with using the trappings of a disaster movie to attempt to spread a Christian message beyond the already converted, but “Left Behind” fails on several counts. Its spirituality manages to be both irritatingly sanctimonious and doctrinally vague; viewers who go into the film unfamiliar with the contentious Scriptural interpretations behind the series’ apocalyptic visions will leave scarcely better informed at the end. On a technical level, the pic’s touted $16 million production budget actually seems high considering what made it onscreen, with Armstrong’s leaden pacing and chintzy visual effects sapping the action sequences of all tension or believability.

One hesitates to dwell too much on the performances, given the material the actors have to work with, but there are several howlers throughout. Poor Sparks, so likable in 2012’s “Sparkle” remake, has a dramatic scene that’s so misjudged it’s difficult not to laugh. And as for Cage, he’s certainly been in worse movies than this, but he seems too cowed by the story’s religious underpinnings to embrace the crazy-eyed scenery consumption that helped make his late-career turns such guilty pleasures; here, he simply looks tired.

The issues with Cage’s performance may point to the biggest problem with the whole affair. There is nothing in the Scriptures that prohibits the good-natured enjoyment of schlocky B-movies, no reason faith-driven audiences can’t have a “Showgirls” or an “Army of Darkness” to call their own. Had the filmmakers embraced even a little bit of the plentiful camp value here, “Left Behind” at least could have been entertaining. As it stands, only the cheeky marketing person who thought to quote Satan in the film’s ads seems to have really understood what this pic’s proper tone should have been.

Reviewed at the Landmark, Los Angeles, Sept. 30, 2014. MPAA rating: PG-13. Running time: 111 MIN.

• Production: A Freestyle Releasing release of a Stoney Lake Entertainment presentation in association with Entertainment One and Olla Prods. Produced by Paul Lalonde, Michael Walker, Ed Clydesdale. Executive producers, Bill Busbice, Jason Hewitt, J. David Williams, Bryan Wright.
• Crew: Directed by Vic Armstrong. Screenplay, Paul Lalonde, John Patus, from the novel by Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins. Camera (color), Jack N. Green; editor, Michael J. Duthie; music, Jack Lenz; production designer, Stephen Altman; art director, Jeremy Woolsey; set decorator, Barbara Haberecht; costume designer, Abby O’Sullivan; sound (Dolby Surround 5.1), Mark LeBlanc; re-recording mixer, John W. Frost; visual effects supervisor, Matthew T. Lynn; assistant director, Artist W. Robinson; casting, Dean E. Fronk, Donald Paul Pemrick.
• With: Nicolas Cage, Chad Michael Murray, Cassi Thomson, Lea Thompson, Nicky Whelan, Jordin Sparks, Georgina Rawlings, Martin Klebba, Gary Grubbs, Lance E. Nichols, Alec Rayme.

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Left Behind Review

Hell hath no fury..

Left Behind is a lazy, soapy, poorly plotted mess. When it's not busy with character subplots that don't pay off, it's placating the views of your fundamentalist grandparents. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love by following @Max_Nicholson on Twitter, or MaxNicholson on IGN.

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Ign recommends.

• Cast & crew
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Left Behind: The Movie

The Biblical prophecy of Armegeddon begins when the Rapture instantly takes all believers in Christ from the Earth. A reporter left behind learns that the Anti-Christ will soon take power. The Biblical prophecy of Armegeddon begins when the Rapture instantly takes all believers in Christ from the Earth. A reporter left behind learns that the Anti-Christ will soon take power. The Biblical prophecy of Armegeddon begins when the Rapture instantly takes all believers in Christ from the Earth. A reporter left behind learns that the Anti-Christ will soon take power.

• Alan B. McElroy
• Paul Lalonde
• Joe Goodman
• Kirk Cameron
• Brad Johnson
• Janaya Stephens
• 421 User reviews
• 42 Critic reviews
• 22 Metascore
• 3 nominations

• Buck Williams

• Rayford Steele

• Chloe Steele

• Bruce Barnes
• (as Clarence Gilyard)

• Chaim Rosenzweig

• Nicolae Carpathia

• Hattie Durham

• Jonathan Stonegal

• Joshua Cothran

• Dirk Burton

• Steve Plank

• Alan Tompkins
• (as Philip Akon)
• Mrs. Irene Steele
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Released directly to video in 2000, copies of the film came bundled with a free pass to watch the film in theaters when it was later given limited release in early 2001.
• Goofs The flags flying outside the real United Nations building are of the member nations. The ones shown are of Canada's provinces.

[Watching TV]

Chloe Steele : Turn that up.

Raymie Steele : Mom said to turn it down.

Chloe Steele : You always do what you're told?

Raymie Steele : Yeah, you should try it sometime.

• Crazy credits The Producers wish to thank: Karll Goodman (who inadvertently vanished during editing)
• Connections Edited into Left Behind: Like Son (2013)
• Soundtracks Left Behind Written by Regie Hamm Performed by Bryan Duncan & SHINEmk

User reviews 421

• May 25, 2004
• How long is Left Behind: The Movie? Powered by Alexa
• February 2, 2001 (United States)
• Official site
• Left Behind
• Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Cloud Ten Pictures
• Namesake Entertainment
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $4,000,000 (estimated)
• Feb 4, 2001

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 36 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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FILM REVIEW

FILM REVIEW; A Biblically Inspired Tale About Dying and Surviving

By Stephen Holden

• Feb. 2, 2001

''How do you describe both a beginning and an end?'' a narrator intones portentously over the opening credits of Vic Sarin's film ''Left Behind: The Movie.'' ''We should have known better, but we didn't.''

Those unaware of this movie's history should be forgiven if they wonder what in heaven's name might be going on. (And yes, heaven's name has something to do with it.)

After this initial jolt, the film appears to become a futuristic global thriller with sci-fi overtones written and filmed in the clunking kitsch style of a 1970's made-for-television disaster movie. But the dialogue won't stop making bizarre thudding sounds. International potentates discussing world events are given to straight-faced utterances like, ''World peace: it's been a dream ever since Cain looked sideways at Abel.''

Why the solemnity? Well, for one thing, the disaster being depicted isn't just any old catastrophe but the Big One, Armageddon itself. Ho-hum, you might say. Haven't we been there enough times already? Well, maybe not. For the final days anticipated by ''Left Behind'' aren't just any old Armageddon but an evangelical Christian interpretation from the Book of Revelation translated by the authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins into a pulp- fiction series of best-selling thrillers of which ''Left Behind'' was only the first.

Ahead of its theatrical release, the movie, which opens today nationwide, has already sold a staggering 2.8 million videocassettes, mostly in the Christian market. Think of its theatrical release as the crowning touch of a multimedia marketing coup.

Beyond its pre-sold message to a core audience of true believers, ''Left Behind'' succeeds minimally in illustrating the novel's popular appeal. With enough plot for three movies, it keeps the twists, turns and reversals coming until the very end, at which point it leaves the door wide open for the rest of the series to be filmed. Can a boxed set be far behind?

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3 Things You Should Know about 'Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist'

• Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
• Updated Feb 06, 2023

Buck Williams is an experienced television journalist who is searching for the truth in a world full of fear and lies.

Six months ago, millions of people – representatives of every country on the planet – disappeared, instantly, without a trace.

It was, Williams tells viewers, the “single most catastrophic event in all of human history.” Unfortunately, though, there are “still more questions than answers.”

Some people believe aliens caused it. Others posit that the government is behind the disappearances. Still, others believe that a new technology is to blame.

A few people even theorize that the vanishings were predicted thousands of years ago in an ancient book, the Bible

Who is right? And will Williams ever uncover the truth?

The new film Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist follows the story of Williams and others as they try to survive in a world that is quickly unraveling.

Here are three things you should know about the movie:

Photo courtesy: ©Fathom Events, used with permission

1. It’s a Sequel to the 2014 Film

Rise of the Antichrist is a sequel to the 2014 film Left Behind , both of which are based on the bestselling novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins and which imagine what the world will be like in the days surrounding the return of Jesus and the Rapture . The novels and films are based on what theologians call a pretribulation, premillennial interpretation of the Bible’s passages about the Last Days. (Other categories of interpretation include amillennialism and postmillennialism, both of which differ dramatically from the Left Behind plot.)

The first half of the film follows a skeptical Buck Williams as he investigates various theories about The Vanishing – some say the people who disappeared were “different” – and interviews so-called experts on his network. Williams’ view on the End Times changes as he watches a powerful businessman, Jonathan Stonogal, promote a one-world currency and a powerful politician, Romania’s Nicolae Carpathia, promote a one-world government. (One of those characters becomes the Antichrist.) Those events align with what Barnes has said will happen.

Photo courtesy: ©Fathom Events, used with permission.

2. It Features Well-Known Talent

You’ll likely recognize some of the faces in Rise of the Antichrist . Kevin Sorbo ( God’s Not Dead ), the film’s director, portrays Steele, while Neal McDonough ( Captain America, Band of Brothers ) plays Stonogal. The film also stars Emmy-nominee Corbin Bernsen ( Major League series), Sam Sorbo ( Let There Be Light ), Greg Perrow ( Actor for Hire ) and Charles Andrew Payne ( The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants ).

Faith-based films often receive criticism for their poor acting, yet the cast in Rise of the Antichrist  is solid and believable. Perrow, who has the appearance of a TV host, is a perfect fit for the role.

Rise of the Antichrist features a different set of actors and actresses than that of 2014’s Left Behind , which had   Nicholas Cage portraying Steele and Chad Michael Murray playing Williams. (If you’re curious, the new films are a sort of “reboot” of the 2000-era Left Behind films starring Kirk Cameron.)

3. It’s Part-Detective, Part-Apologetics, Part-Sermon

You don’t have to be a fan of the Left Behind series to enjoy Rise of the Antichrist.  That’s because much of the film is similar to a science fiction detective film as it follows a television reporter on his quest for the truth.

It’s one-third a thriller film, one-third an apologetics lesson, and one-third a sermon. It includes the “come to the altar” moments that some moviegoers hate, but it also includes a few lessons in pretribulation, premillennial apologetics, seemingly aimed at critics within the Christian community who say there’s little biblical support for this view of the End Times. (Asked by Chloe Steele to reveal biblical evidence for the Rapture, Barnes turns to 1 Thessalonians 4 and then reads it. Barnes also shows Steele and others his “End Times” charts.)

Rise of the Antichrist  is the best Left Behind movie yet, even if it does include one or two moments of “cheese” that briefly distract from the plot.

Fans of the Left Behind story will enjoy it the most. But for those who never read the books – like me – it includes enough gripping drama to make it interesting.

Rise of the Antichrist is unrated but likely would be PG-13 due to violence (we see people shot and killed at point-blank range) and thematic elements of fright and peril. It also includes brief coarse language (h-ll, 2).

Entertainment rating : 3 out of 5 stars.

Family-friendly rating : 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

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Left behind, common sense media reviewers.

Mix of apocalyptic book series and the Bible.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Characters in peril, some killed, disappearance of

References to adultery.

Some drinking and smoking.

Parents need to know that this movie has a great deal of violence, including a murder that may be shocking to some people. The disappearance of millions of people and apocalyptic theme is genuinely disturbing, and may be very upsetting to some audiences. There is no bad language, but there are mild references to an…

Violence & Scariness

Characters in peril, some killed, disappearance of millions of people.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this movie has a great deal of violence, including a murder that may be shocking to some people. The disappearance of millions of people and apocalyptic theme is genuinely disturbing, and may be very upsetting to some audiences. There is no bad language, but there are mild references to an extramarital affair. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (5)
• Kids say (17)

Based on 5 parent reviews

Suspenseful, Compelling, and Truth

My children loved this series., what's the story.

Kirk Cameron ( Growing Pains ) plays Buck Williams, a television news correspondent with a big story. An Israeli scientist has discovered a way to feed the world with a special grain that is plentiful, hardy, and inexpensive. He wants to make it available to everyone but some powerful and wealthy people do not want that to happen. Buck takes an airplane flight piloted by Rayford Steele (Bradford Johnson). Flight attendant Hattie Durham (Chelsea Noble), a friend of Buck's and Rayford's mistress, is also on board. Suddenly, dozens of passengers simply disappear, leaving their clothes behind, while down below, millions of people, as many as a third of all the people on earth, have vanished. Rayford rushes home and finds that the only one left is his daughter, Chloe (Janaya Stephens). His wife and son are gone, leaving only their clothes behind. Buck and Rayford try to find out what has happened. They get some answers from a minister, who tells them that the people who are gone are the true believers. They are with God, and the rest are left behind. A minister named Nicolae Carpathia (Gordon Currie) appears to be the pawn of powerful industrialists who want to take advantage of the hysteria to control the food supply. But Nicolae has other plans.

Is It Any Good?

LEFT BEHIND tries hard to succeed as parable and as thriller. It is based not just on the first in a series of best-selling books, but also on the Biblical Book of Revelations, and is made by people who care as much about teaching their views of the Word of God as they do about making an exciting movie. They do an impressive job. The movie's script, acting, and production values are not up to the standards of mainstream Hollywood theatrical productions, but it is filmed with a lot of sincerity. Many families, especially those who have a hard time finding movies they are comfortable sharing with their children, will find this to be a worthwhile thriller for older children and a starting point for some important conversations.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about this movie's roots in traditional Christian doctrine and about their own views of faith, God, and heaven. They should also talk about those characters who are deceived by others, and what makes that possible. Why do Buck and Hattie see Nicolae so differently?

Movie Details

• In theaters : February 2, 2001
• On DVD or streaming : October 31, 2000
• Cast : Brad Johnson , Janaya Stephens , Kirk Cameron
• Director : Victor Sarin
• Studio : Cloud Ten Pictures
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Run time : 96 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : violence
• Last updated : January 31, 2023

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‘Left Behind’ Review: Nicolas Cage’s Bible Movie Is God-Awful

Overt Christian messages and Nicolas Cage’s omnipresence are not the only reasons why this film about the rapture is terrible. The true apocalypse is that it has no soul.

Matthew Paul Turner

Stoney Lake Entertainment

Left Behind , the much-anticipated film about the beginning of the end of the world, is exactly what you think it is: a Christian movie starring Nicolas Cage. That the Academy Award-winning actor and star of National Treasure , Leaving Las Vegas , and The Croods is playing the lead role in a film with obvious motivations to evangelize becomes abundantly clear early on, and that fact is born again and again (and again) for the better part of two hours.

Amid this cinematic feature about strangers who find themselves having to be with each other in the aftermath of an event in which millions disappear worldwide, it’s impossible to forget that Left Behind is a Christian movie starring Nicolas Cage. Why? Because the strategically placed Bibles, the awkward and forced theological debates, the not-so subtle Christian messages, the unrealistic religious tension, and Nicolas Cage are always present to remind us that we’re watching a movie made by evangelicals for evangelical purposes. Ooh, and look, there’s Nicolas Cage.

But overt Christian messages and Cage’s omnipresence are not the only reasons why Left Behind is a terrible movie. And yes, it’s indeed terrible—god-awful, a less interesting, more convoluted version of the original Left Behind . Yes, this Vic Armstrong-directed “apocalyptic thriller” is Left Behind ’s second coming to the big screen. Those hoping that this Left Behind is a beefed-up, more sophisticatedly produced, and action-packed (perhaps better?) version of its original —a Cloud Ten production that released in 2000 and featured Kirk Cameron in the starring role—will be sorely disappointed.

While some of the special effects are a bit more grandiose than the outdated effects happening around Kirk Cameron’s head in his Left Behind , other than the names of characters and a few recognizable-yet-tweaked storylines this remake pays little resemblance to its predecessor. Which is actually a shame, really, because the original Left Behind , though hardly a good movie, did at least include something of an actual story. Yes, it was terrible. But compared to 2014’s Left Behind , it’s an epic.

In this new Left Behind , the prophetic narrative first told in Jerry Jenkins’ and Tim LaHaye’s multimillion-selling novel, also called Left Behind , is all but missing. Though the screenplays for both the original and its reborn successor were written by the same duo, Paul LaLonde and John Patus, and both focus on what happens to a small group of people following the return of Jesus Christ, fans of the book and of the Dispensational theology on which its based will likely find little more than its mission to proselytize to celebrate in Armstrong’s new tale.

But the true apocalypse of this new Left Behind —what makes it far worse than that bad original—is that it’s a soulless Christian movie starring Nicolas Cage. Which is ironic, since the idea of “soul” is such an integral part of Christianity and Christianity is such an integral part of Left Behind .

And though the theology of Left Behind is strange and unbelievable, it also could, in the right hands, inspire a hell of a story. But that’s what’s missing in here; this so-called apocalyptic thriller is void of a story— Left Behind is about as close to being storyless as you can get before being called static.

Even in spots where a story happens to evolve, it’s so formulaic, so cheesy, so embarrassing that it offers no real reason to care or heck, even believe that the characters we meet in Left Behind are actually human and encountering a life-changing event, let alone something that supposedly is about to change everything they know to be true about the world. The filmmakers are too busy using their characters as megaphones in order to tell us what they believe is true, that the return of Jesus is imminent and you better be ready.

There’s always a message, rarely a storyline.

During the first 32 minutes of Left Behind , the message is this: Christians are nut jobs . That’s the mantra we hear when we meet Rayford Steele (Nicolas Cage). Steele is a husband, a father of two, and an airline pilot who’s having an affair with a flight attendant because his wife is cheating on him with—wait for it—Jesus.

Yes, Jesus. Apparently, after converting to evangelical Christianity, Irene Steele (Lea Thompson) turned into the kind of Bible thumper that would make Rick Santorum blush, and her constant attempts to get Rayford to trust in Jesus have put a strain on their relationship. But Irene must be annoying because even her daughter, Chloe (Cassi Thomson), a sophomore in college, can’t stand to be around her.

Which is why Rayford volunteered to work on his birthday, because his wife is in love with Jesus but also because he wants to rendezvous in London at a U2 concert (yes, a U2 concert) with his lover, Hattie Durham (Nicky Whelan), a beautiful blonde who’s much younger than Steele, and so naive that she’s completely unaware that the object of her affection is fiftysomething and married with kids.

All of this family drama comes to a head at a food court at JFK. Not only are Rayford and Hattie at the airport, but Chloe (Ray’s daughter) is there, too! Having just arrived on a plane from college, she’s come home for a surprise party for her father. Upon learning that he’s now working, Chloe makes plans to confront him at the gate before he boards his flight. As she’s waiting, Chloe just so happens to overhear an outspoken Christian female (she’d just purchased a book called Acts of God at the airport bookstore moments before) passionately proclaiming her End Times doctrines about God to Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray), a well-known news anchor and author.

Once again, the message rings clear: Christians are batshit crazy for believing in the Rapture . As the Christian lady quotes Bible verses at Buck, an irritated Chloe darts into the conversation and interjects her snappy anti-God opinion at the lady. Buck falls for Chloe’s feisty godless ways and, as they’re waiting for her father to arrive, the two engage in another cliché conversation about how nutty Christians are (Chloe even calls her mother a “whack job,” as if it’s a novel term) and there, during a four-minute conversation, the chemistry between Chloe and Buck heats up. Then, Chloe and her father have a heart to heart about how “crazy Mom the Christian is,” and then Rayford gets on the plane. Buck, who’s also flying to London, kisses Chloe before boarding the plane.

The message about how crazy Christians are is reiterated a couple more times, once when Chloe and her mom get into a fight about God and religion, which forces Chloe, along with her brother, to head to the mall.

But then, at minute 33, as Rayford, Hattie, Buck, and like 14 stereotypes (among them an angry little person, a selfish middle-aged businessman, a devout Muslim, and American Idol ’s Jordin Sparks playing an angry paranoid rich mother who’s managed to sneak a gun onto the plane) are flying to London and Chloe and her little brother are shopping at the mall, Jesus comes back and all hell gets raised.

Though most Christians who adhere to Rapture theology believe that Jesus’ Rapture happens in a twinkling of an eye, Left Behind ’s Rapture happens much more slowly, sometimes in slow motion. I swear, Jesus came back for at least 15 minutes, rapturing to Heaven the world’s born again population (most of which were Americans living in the New York City region) and every child 12 and under. Jesus made a huge mess, too, leaving piles of lifeless articles of clothing everywhere.

Chloe happened to be hugging her little brother when Jesus snatched him up out of her arms, leaving her all alone embracing his empty shirt, pants, underwear, and hat. The effects of the Rapture seemed to go on for forever, and the damage was ungodly: plane crashes, car crashes, bus crashes, and looting—my God, there’s lots of people looting in Left Behind . Poor Chloe seems to be present for every calamity. No, she really is; she dives away from cars, outruns planes, ducks away from falling buses. Her backpack is even stolen by somebody riding along on a motorcycle. Honestly, it was like Jesus’ return, in addition to being a rescue operation of Christians and kids, was also a personal vendetta against poor Chloe.

After the Rapture scene, Left Behind ’s message changed instantly from Christians are nut jobs to Oops, those nut jobs were right . In the same convoluted, unbelievable ways that the first message was delivered, the second message gets beaten over our heads for Left Behind’s remaining 70 minutes—with stereotypical conversations, nonsensical events, and stereotypical characterization. And just when you think it can’t get any worse, the Muslim on the plane is assumed to be a terrorist or the selfish middle-aged businessman realizes his love for money has ruined him and he finds God or Jordin Sparks goes berserk and pulls out a handgun from her carry-on bag and threatens to kill everybody on the plane.

Heck, by the end, even Nicolas Cage is a diehard believer in the theologies of Left Behind and ready to turn his life over to Jesus. And Buck and Chloe? Well, by all accounts, they are in love. But not before Chloe climbs to the top of the highest bridge in NYC in preparation of killing herself. After raising her hands to the sky and crying out to her mother for forgiveness, and right before Chloe leaps, her cellphone rings. It’s Buck who’s on a plane getting ready crash-land into NYC.

Cue Nicolas Cage landing a plane.

Ultimately, just like all of those empty articles of clothing left behind by Jesus’ return, Left Behind is a lifeless film, void of anything remotely human, God-like, or authentic, just a terrible Christian movie starring Nicolas Cage.

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Left Behind Reviews

Cage has little to do but somehow manages to do less with it.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 23, 2023

…Left Behind seems entirely preoccupied with the mechanics of landing a jet aircraft on a motorway rather than any advanced theological questions...

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | May 15, 2022

Cage is a practitioner of the Nouveau Shamanic school of acting but here he has dialled it down perhaps out of respect to the religious nature of the material, or perhaps he's saving the wild stuff for Con Air 2: This Time it's Biblical.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 2, 2021

Rather than focusing primarily on the religious aspects, the film mishmashes multiple genres, desperately hoping for a wider appeal.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/10 | Dec 4, 2020

For a film concerning the beginning of the end of times, Left Behind sure is bereft of any kind of tension.

Full Review | Original Score: 0.5/5 | Sep 5, 2019

Left Behind is essentially a bad disaster movie, but I swear to God I've seen worse movies this year, and worse Nicolas Cage movies at that. I can't in good faith tell you to see it, but I'd be lying if I told you I didn't enjoy it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 28, 2018

The basic premise of the film could have made for an engaging and far-out watch. The very concept of the Rapture could have been depicted with power and mystery, but instead the opposite is achieved in a film that just looks slapdash.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 14, 2017

Overt Christian messages and Cage's omnipresence are not the only reasons why Left Behind is a terrible movie. And yes, it's indeed terrible-god-awful, a less interesting, more convoluted version of the original Left Behind.

Full Review | Sep 21, 2017

This new film is a watered-down and somewhat changed version of the earlier movie with a bigger budget and not much else. There is barely enough undercooked scriptural theology to critique in the vacuous writing and painful acting.

Full Review | Aug 10, 2017

There's no drama. No suspense. No real stakes, even, because most of the movie takes place after the Rapture already happened.

Full Review | Sep 20, 2016

The effects are hilarious, the sets are rinky-dink, and the character names are funnier than a full season of 'Big Bang Theory,' and the "narrative arc" of our heroine is laughably predictable.

Full Review | May 30, 2016

The only prayers Left Behind inspires are for Nicolas Cage's career.

Full Review | May 12, 2015

Ostensibly an exploration of biblical themes, Left Behind avoids any theological debate to revel unsuccessfully in the mass-hysteria created by God's Rapture.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 26, 2015

I never thought I'd write this, but Kirk Cameron's Left Behind, flawed as it is, looks and sounds better in almost every single way.

Full Review | Original Score: D- | Jan 13, 2015

Outlandishly inept in every way, 'Left Behind' is easily one of the worst movies of 2014.

Full Review | Original Score: 0/4 | Nov 9, 2014

My goodness, what on earth is Nicolas Cage doing in this movie?

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 31, 2014

A very circumscribed, boring thriller that director Vic Armstrong hobbles with a very quiet, non-urgent tone throughout.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/10 | Oct 25, 2014

The first movie made from this material was all about the Anti-Christ taking over the UN. This one's about landing a plane.

Full Review | Oct 20, 2014

I am now relatively certain there is a Hell and it is a darkened theater with no doors showing Left Behind on a loop for eternity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/10 | Oct 17, 2014

Faith-driven audiences deserve better...

Full Review | Original Score: 1/10 | Oct 9, 2014

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‘the big bend’ review: an alluring and intimate drama steeped in edge-of-the-world peril.

Writer-director Brett Wagner’s feature zeroes in on two young families whose getaway to a remote corner of Texas veers into rough terrain.

By Sheri Linden

Sheri Linden

Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic

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They’re on their way to visit friends who have renovated an adobe on 20 acres of cactus and scrub. The expanse of the Lone Star state that unwinds before them (a region that figures significantly in the final stretches of the Lily Gladstone indie The Unknown Country ) suggests a permeable border between the alluring and the precarious, a collision of dreamscape and the everyday that’s a defining quality of Wagner’s film.

Long before a visit to the national park turns disastrous, the four actors are superb at conveying the connections and rifts among their characters, and the ways this reunion will not be a simple vacation. The groaning water heater that Mac intends to repair adds an ominous bass note to the sense of looming calamity.

Friends since college, Mac and Cory are kept at arm’s length by Cory’s heavy secret. In that backyard tub and, later, enjoying a mud bath by the river, the two women are more open with each other, although Georgia does most of the unloading. Melanie, who appears to be in the early months of pregnancy, responds to her friend’s inquiring gaze with a denial that leaves Georgia unconvinced but not about to push it.

Mac and Georgia’s sons (played by brothers Gavin Mathews and Grae Mathews) are about the same ages as the visiting girls, and the kids quickly establish a rapport. But the younger girl, Fiona (Delilah Wagner), has a tendency to wander off — onto the moonlit porch to peer into the outspread desert, or, later, into the welcoming sphere of exceptionally amenable wild horses. With a creative purposefulness that artists in nearby Marfa would admire, she constructs a kind of Rube Goldberg water sculpture. And when she discovers a mud-encrusted toad, she alone is certain that it isn’t dead, making its resuscitation her project.

What drives the movie isn’t this action contrivance, though it’s nicely played by Masciangelo and the young Wagner and reveals the drama’s underlying optimism (embodied, too, in the yearning Americana of the score by Alejandro Rose-Garcia and Julian Cassia). The beating heart of The Big Bend is something more amorphous, the emotional pressures that each of the couples are facing, and how their time together in this rugged terrain pushes them to the surface.

The arresting landscape is alive in the elegant widescreen camerawork by cinematographer Paul Atkins (who has worked on a number of nature documentaries as well as serving as second unit DP on The Revenant and To the Wonder ), which captures not just the rocky outcrops and wind-strewn detritus but the overwhelming mood of isolation in a place where streetlights and sidewalks are nonexistent and Wi-Fi signals are iffy.

If there’s a comic edge, late in the proceedings, to the declaration by older boy Connor (Grae Mathews) that “the grown-ups are thinking,” the sarcasm is earned. On the same night that the two dads make one of the worst mistakes a parent can make, the two moms have been getting wasted on tequila. Snapping to attention to deal with a waking nightmare, everyone must do their best not to fall apart.

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Ending of Leave the World Behind explained after Netflix viewers called it 'stupid'

The netflix film left viewers absolutely baffled.

Jess Battison

Towards the end of last year, Leave the World Behind left viewers feeling pretty baffled.

The Netflix film was slammed as ‘stupid’ as plenty of people couldn’t quite get their head around the ending.

And as some started to make a ‘scary realisation’ over the movie ’s ‘hidden meaning’, others pointed out a slight inconsistency in the storyline.

Based on a book with the same name by Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind centres on couple Amanda (played by Julia Roberts) and Clay (played by Ethan Hawke ) who take their kids Rose and Archie (played by Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans) to a luxurious rental home for a holiday.

However, not long after they get there, the home’s owner G.H. Scott (played by Mahershala Ali) arrives with his daughter Ruth (played by Myha’la) to escape some weird goings on in the city.

The two families are forced together while things get even stranger outside - leading the two blokes to meet up with conspiracy theorist Danny (played by Kevin Bacon) in the hopes of getting an understanding of what’s going on.

Danny recommends that the family hide out in a bunker on the neighbour’s property.

The movie ends with Amanda and Ruth looking for Rose who has gone missing - while the pair are outside they witness explosions in the city beyond.

In the final scene we see Rose finding the bunker and picking up a DVD of the final season of Friends , which she then puts on. As the opening theme song kicks in, the credits roll – and viewers weren’t buying it.

In a post on X, one said: “No, why did the Leave World Behind end like that?”

As another wrote: “That Leave The World Behind movie sucked cuz wtf was that ending.”

But Alam has defended the choice, which differs from the ending in the book, saying that it's not the type of film to wrap everything up in a neat bow at the end.

Asked why the audience weren’t given closure at the end, Alam told Variety: “Wouldn’t that be so dissatisfying? It’s a film that respects you as a viewer enough to not provide that.

“In that final scene between Julia and Myha’la, they don’t embrace. Even prior to that, when they’re in that little shed and come to a détente, Ruth acknowledges that there’s some truth to the things that Amanda has said, that they’re in agreement about something, but it doesn’t end with a hug.

"It’s not that kind of story. I have no problem with like a big disaster movie that saves the six or eight principals and reunites them in the aftermath of a disaster and allows you to be like, ‘Well, everything’s gonna be okay.’

"I just don’t think this is that kind of film."

Topics:  Netflix , Film , TV and Film

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@ jessbattison_

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